


Bud

by spirrum



Series: This Long Road [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Implied Pregnancy, King Alistair and Warden Queen origin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3429896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs are the long years, and now theirs is the joy, new as the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because what I so desperately want is for these two to live a long and happy life together. (This can also be read as a companion to my longer Alistair/Cousland fic 'Roses For Your Garden'.)

They are to announce the news today, and she is fretting.

She’s not usually prone to fits of nervousness – “strong shoulders and a level head, both your mother’s gifts, pup, but mine is your calm heart,” her father would always say, wiping the mud off her cheeks and tucking her hair behind her ear, and declaring with a secret smile that these were the traits of a fine leader indeed.

 _A fine leader_ , she thinks, tasting the words. And she has been that, and more. She’s commanded soldiers, carried the heavy crown of a Queen on her level head and faced down the hard truth of her own mortality with her strong shoulders held straight and her faith unshaken. She is a Cousland in mind and manner, and she’s not one to fret, but she is fretting now, unable to keep her hands still as she plucks at her dress, at herhair. A stray lock has escaped her coronet, and it’s just too short to pushbehind her ear, but she’s too restless to sit down long enough for her handmaiden to fix it.

Alistair is already waiting when she arrives, and there’s a smile for her when she approaches, a “Hello, my love” in low tones, for her ears only, and a kiss between her brows that she feels like warmth all the way down her spine to the small of her back. And when he draws back to look at her, she knows he can read her nervousness in the dip between her eyes; her stuttering heart in the purse of her lips.

“Ready?” he asks, carefully testing the word, for he knows her calm heart, her level head and her strong shoulders, but he also knows her well enough to tell when something is not right.

Her hands are shaking where she presses them against her stomach, fingers tangling in the ruffles of her dress and she wants to say  _yes_ , but the word clings to the roof of her mouth. 

What will they say? She is not unfamiliar with the eyes of many on her back; she is the woman who helped end the Blight, who ascended to the throne upon her victory, who vanished for years and who returned with a cure to the incurable. But it’s not just about her, now, and she feels the weight of the knowledge on her strong shoulders, wavering under the fine silk of her gown.  

Alistair grabs her hand then – impulsively, almost boyishly, and her breath catches, like they haven’t been married ten years, and there are roses in her cheeks blooming with a bashful pleasure she should be too old and too world-weary to feel.

But his smile is not old but new. It’s not the smile of a husband of long years and a King wise in his ways but someone younger, someone with a brash and unwearied youth, and it smooths the tired grooves at the corners of his kind eyes. “Take all the time you need,” he tells her, though she knows he’s eager to announce the news – to finally allow the court to breathe, and confirm the rumours that have been hiding in the shadows of the castle, in fragile whispers afraid of the light of day, as though to talk of it would mean bad luck.

She winds her fingers through his, feels his rough palms with her own, and the protruding scar running the length of his thumb. It’s not from a blade or a dagger but something much less grand — a blunt cheese knife and a challenge lost, and she remembers wrapping his hand by the fireside, the Blight on their heels and real laughter in her throat for the first time since leaving Highever. 

She had not kissed it that night, their affection such a new and fragile thing, and her rose still tucked between his sparse belongings. But she has kissed it many times since, and she knows his hands – the soldier’s hands, and the King’s hands, caught in her own, her fingers slender but no less strong. They’ve held the world together with these hands, and now their world is smaller, cradled below her heart and growing every day. In a few months they’ll be able to hold it, cradle it, but for now it is hers to carry, her small secret. 

_What will they say?_

The hand not holding hers is warm against the slight swell, nearly invisible beneath the ruffles of the dress. Good news to be delivered, finally, after years of heads shaken in sadness, and her pillow damp with her tears at night. It’s still early and there is no guarantee (but there never has been with the two of them, she knows), but the healers are confident, and their own joy is too bright to be contained for much longer.

“Ready whenever you are,” she says then, heart truly calm now behind her breast. 

His smile is proud and his hand is warm where it envelops her own, his thumb running over her knuckles, and when he moves she follows. And as they greet their court, side by side in this as in everything else, his voice ringing clear across the room, bright with a cheer he won’t hold back now, and well-wishers come forth to offer their compliments, 

his hand does not let go of hers. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally an answer for the prompts "anniversary celebration" and "staring into each others eyes", but I thought it could work as an addition to this ficlet.

The climbing roses stretch their thorned hands towards her through the dark, and she traces the sight of them with her eyes, the velvety petals spread wide in the balmy summer heat. The balcony railing feels cool beneath her palms, and in the quiet she takes a moment to breathe. Below her Denerim sprawls, silent and unassuming, while the muted sounds of the festivities within the castle drift through the doors at her back.

Footsteps from within alert her to approaching company, and she doesn’t need to look to know who it is; she knows the sound of his gait, the heavy, loping steps that even twenty years with a crown on his head have not managed to turn gentle and easy. 

 _Like a happy mabari_ , she thinks with a fond smile as she hears him come out onto the balcony. 

“There you are, my love.”

A hand comes to rest on her shoulder, heavy and warm even through the fabric of her dress. Alistair moves close with an ease she loves, and when his lips brush her temple she leans into the touch.

“Have I been gone too long?” she asks, inclining her head to look at him where he stands beside her. The evening finery looks good on him, she notes; shades of dark red and burnished gold, and the soft, pale fur lining his collar. And she finds it hard, suddenly, connecting this image to the memory of the awkward young man forced out of his Warden’s livery for the sake of a King’s gilded cape and crown. 

His answer is accompanied by a wry quirk of the lips. “Not very, but I was running out of tasteful smalltalk, so I figured I might come and fetch you before I accidentally step on someone’s feet. Figuratively or literally, take your pick – there’s been dancing.” He shudders for effect. 

“Ha,” she breathes. “Imagine, the King of Ferelden, unable to keep a party running smoothly without his wife.”

“Hey now, I managed it rather well when you were away, thank you very much,” he tells her, but it’s with a smile that he says it, and it’s one she returns with ease. The years have smoothed the hard edges left by her disappearance, and they speak of it freely now, if not a little wryly. Theirs has been a union of hardships, but when she looks at him now there is no regret in her heart.

“Twenty years since we married, can you really believe it?” he asks her then, quietly, and she notes a hint of fond disbelief in his tone. 

She smiles, fingers finding the hair at his temple, greying beneath his crown. “Every morning when I wake to  _this,”_ she quips.  

He snorts. “Two decades has not done anything to your sense of humour. It’s still terrible.”

“Ah, but you didn’t marry me for my humour, did you?”

Alistair grins. “A fair point, my darling wife.” His lips brush her cheek, and her laugh is a bright, girlish thing.

“Maker, listen to you! It’s no wonder the pup can’t stand to be in the same room as us anymore.”

“Oh  _I’m_  responsible for that, am I? I’m not the one who still insists on calling her  _pup._ ” But his grin is infectious, crinkling his eyes at the corners and she sees the years in them, the good and the hard that have marked their long marriage. And there’s a flutter in her heart even now, two long decades since the time she first felt it, catching a smile thrown her way across camp one morning, in a Blight-riven world with no room for soft velvet and parties, and where the thought of one day having grey hair was a dream they hardly dared consider. 

“They’ll be missing us both in the ballroom soon,” she murmurs, thumb brushing against his cheek, and the crow’s feet she loves so fiercely. 

“Yes, we should be getting back.” His kiss is warm against her palm, and his grin clever and boyish. “You know, we could stare into each other’s eyes some more across the refreshment table? She’ll be mortified.”

“With a party as large as this, I suspect she won’t be the only one,” she counters, but he’s laughing as he leans in to capture her grinning mouth. And when he links his arm with hers, she rests her head on his shoulder, and turns her eyes from the climbing roses and their city asleep and at peace. 

Twenty years, and their kingdom is flourishing, foreign relations aided by the perseverance of the Inquisition and their own sacrifices, plenty and heavy in their hearts even now. Their dreams are quiet, and there are no whispers, no Calling to draw them away from their hard-earned comforts. They have many reasons to celebrate, tonight as any other night. 

But their eldest is at the tender age where everything is mortally embarrassing, and their youngest has just stopped putting everything he can get his hands on in his mouth, and will be taking his first, tentative steps before the end of the year. And there is laughter between their castle’s walls, young and bright and yet untouched by the world. 

And with all the years on their backs, it’s in these small things, these little joys of their own, private legacy that they find their happiness truly lies. 


End file.
